As the ability to connect remotely from one computer to another increases, so too does the problem of maintaining the connection. For example, many businesses are set up with local offices away from the corporate headquarters. Having each office maintain its own set of files would be costly and counterproductive: replicating files to each office takes time and opens the door to the possibility of different versions of the same files.
Rather than having each office maintain a complete file set, instead each office can maintain a set of local files only. To access files that are shared across offices, each office connects to a server maintained at some central facility. This system avoids the need to distribute files to the different offices, which in turn avoids the possibility of different file versions.
To help maintain redundancy of operations, the central facility can have more than one server accessible from the remote office. Multiple servers have an additional advantage: different remote offices can connect to different servers. Not only does this allow for redundancy, but it also distributes the load across many servers, preventing one server from becoming overburdened.
When a user at one of the remote offices wants to access a file from the central server, the user logs in to the central server. The user provides a login ID and a password, which the server uses to verify his identity. Once the user's identity is determined, the user can then access files.
But what happens if the connection between the remote office and the central server is lost? If the connection between the remote office and the central server is lost, then the user has lost access to files on the central server. Worse, the user has to establish a new connection with another server, requiring the user once again to provide his login ID and password.
A need remains for a way to allow the remote computer to automatically establish a new connection without involving the user that addresses these and other problems associated with the prior art.